If you’re buying a used Ram truck, you’ll want to know if it has a Cummins engine with a 53 block. Here is why it’s important and how to identify one.
Cummins has been one of the most respected names in the diesel engine game pretty much since the moment the company began manufacturing diesel engines. And that is saying a lot, as the Indiana-based company has been designing and manufacturing diesel powerplants for more than a century.
Over that span, Cummins engines have been utilized to power everything from automobiles to boats to long-haul trucks. Since 1989 they’ve also been featured prominently in the celebrated Ram pickup truck line. Cummins engines have been well loved by Ram drivers over the years, with the manufacturer’s Ram 6.7L model even ranking among the most reliable diesels ever made. But not all the manufacturer’s diesel engines have been so beloved. In fact, roughly a decade after Cummins began outfitting trucks bearing the Ram badge with engines, it delivered one of the worst diesels in its history, the so-called “53 Block.
